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If we’ve ever done an SEO audit or review of your website, then you’ve probably heard me preach from high atop Mt. SERP about the importance of linking, both internal and external. Internal links, of course, are links from one page or post of your site to another page or post within your site. And external links are those that point to websites other than your own.

Have you ever wondered how many people are clicking on those links that you so diligently craft with keyword-rich title descriptions? Of course you have!

If you track your website’s statistics with something like Google Analytics, then you can get detailed stats each page of your site and what links your visitors click the most. Log in to Google Analytics (which is free) and go to Content and find the page for which you wish to see click stats, and near the bottom right, click on “In-Page Analytics” under “Click Patterns.”

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If you have a Facebook page for your business or organization and have multiple admins, you’ve probably been frustrated at some point because you can’t post a comment or “like” a post by one of your other admins because it looks like you’re patting yourself on the back.

Be frustrated no longer! Below are some simple steps that will allow you to post comments to a Facebook page, of which you are an admin, using your personal Facebook account, rather than as the Page admin.

Let’s get started!

1) Login to Facebook and go to a Page of which you are an admin.

2) Click on the “Edit Page” button on the top right.

3) You will be taken to a “Manage Permissions” page by default, but you need to click on the “Your Settings” link at the very top of the left navigation menu.

4) Once on the “Your Settings” page, uncheck the first box.

5) Click on “Save Changes” at the bottom.

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At least once a year, I get an email or phone call from a client because they’ve received an invoice from a company called Domain Registry of America. The “invoice” notifies the client that their domain is set to expire and they must renew it by completing and returning the “invoice.”

This is a scam that has caused much consternation for many domain owners who made the mistake of falling for it.

If you have a domain through a reputable registrar like GoDaddy.com or Register.com, then you renew it through those companies. If you fall for this scam, you are authorizing DRA to change your domain registry and instead of paying $7-15 a year for your domain, you’ll end up paying about $35 a year. You don’t need an MBA to realize that’s a bad business decision.

Sadly, this scam has been around for quite some time. Back in 2003 the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint against the company, and in the complaint, it stated:

The Federal Trade Commission has requested that a federal district court enjoin Domain Registry of America, Inc., an Internet domain name re-seller, from making misrepresentations in the marketing of its domain name registration services and require it to pay redress to consumers.

A simple Google search for “Domain Registry of America” is all it takes to figure out they’re not a reputable business. Instead of ceasing their misleading business practices, they’d rather threaten and sue bloggers who report on their shameful scam.

And if you needed any more convincing — which I sincerely hope you don’t — the Better Business Bureau gave the company an F rating. F as in fail.

If you have questions or concerns about your domain, let us know!

Gary Cope is the SEO and online marketing specialist for Business Bullpen. You can follow Gary on Tumblr or Twitter.

Hashtags are used to tag Tweets with a particular topic, e.g., #SEO, #marketing, #Tumblr, etc. Hashtags can be used in the text (sentence) of a Tweet or placed at the end of the Tweet.

While some hashtags like #SEO can be incorporated into a sentence, most seem to be placed at the end of a Tweet merely to add that Tweet to a bigger conversation. For example, when the tornado warnings kept so many people in Southwest Virginia up late in early May, those of us on Twitter tagged our Tweets with #vawx, which stands for “Virginia weather.” This allowed us to create a Twitter feed with only those Tweets containing that hashtag.

Twitter is searchable, and not just by #hashtags. Keywords also play a “key” role. There are two primary differences between keywords and hashtags; keywords can be more than one word (i.e., Virginia Tech) and are not preceded by a hash mark (pound sign). Hashtags are preceded by a hash mark and cannot contain spaces. If you used #Social Media, only #Social would be recognized as a hashtag. But “Social Media” is still searchable.

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So, your organization has a Facebook page, Twitter account and Tumblr (or other blog)… that’s great. But, does your organization have a plan in place on how to use them effectively? How about a schedule for posting? Are you keeping track of what you post where and when? Or are you one of those organizations whose social media strategy consists of firing Wall posts, Tweets and blog posts from the hip with no clear target in sight? If so, read on!

It’s not enough to simply have social media accounts for your business; you have to learn how to use them effectively. And while no one strategy works for every business or organization, here are some tips to get you started.

Define your social media outlets

Let’s start with the basics: what social media platforms are you using? For the sake of this post, let’s assume you have a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a blog. The next question is: who within your organization has access to (i.e., publishing rights) to these accounts?

Categorize the types of content

What type of content are you posting? Photos? Links? Six-hundred word blog posts? Quotes? Customer questions? Before you start (or continue) blasting random posts, take a breather, gather your social media team and develop some categories for your posts.

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